United States or Libya ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I have," she said, "a trusty and faithful servant with me in the castle, to whom I can, without anxiety, confide the charge of your safety; and even if suspected by the way, my name, and the companionship of my servant, will remove all obstacles; it is not a long journey hence to Guadix, which has already revolted to the Moors: there, till the armies of Ferdinand surround the walls, your refuge may be secure."
Without giving themselves time to rest, they set out upon their return, making with all speed for the mountains before the alarm should be given and the country roused. Several of the herdsmen, however, had fled to Guadix, and carried tidings of the ravage to El Zagal.
There lived at this time in a hamlet in the neighborhood of Guadix an ancient Moor of the name of Ibrahim el Guerbi. He was a native of the island of Guerbes, in the kingdom of Tunis, and had for several years led the life of a santon or hermit. The hot sun of Africa had dried his blood, and rendered him of an exalted yet melancholy temperament.
The delays caused to the invading army by these various circumstances had been diligently improved by El Zagal, who felt that he was now making his last stand for empire, and that this campaign would decide whether he should continue a king or sink into a vassal. He was but a few leagues from Baza, at the city of Guadix.
He sent thither all the troops he could spare from his garrison of Guadix, and despatched missives throughout his territories calling upon all true Moslems to hasten to Baza and make a devoted stand in defence of their homes, their liberties, and their religion.
Even so all things were made by the word, and the word was in the beginning. Thought, reason that is, living language is an inheritance, and the solitary thinker of Aben Tofail, the Arab philosopher of Guadix, is as absurd as the ego of Descartes. The real and concrete truth, not the methodical and ideal, is: homo sum, ergo cogito. To feel oneself a man is more immediate than to think.
The fortune of war bore hard against the old monarch; his mind was harassed by disastrous tidings brought each day from Baza, of the sufferings of the inhabitants, and the numbers of the garrison slain in the frequent skirmishes. He dared not go in person to the relief of the place, for his presence was necessary in Guadix to keep a check upon his nephew in Granada.
The old warrior-king was seated in an inner chamber of the castle of Guadix, much cast down in spirit and ruminating on his gloomy fortunes, when an envoy from Baza was announced, and the veteran alcayde Mohammed stood before him. El Zagal saw disastrous tidings written in his countenance. "How fares it with Baza," said he, summoning up his spirits to the question.
"Thus," in the words of that excellent and contemporary historian Andres Bernaldez, commonly called the curate of Los Palacios, "thus did the king deliver Guadix from the hands of the enemies of our holy faith after seven hundred and seventy years that it had been in their possession, ever since the time of Roderick the Goth; and this was one of the mysteries of our Lord, who would not consent that the city should remain longer in the power of the Moors" a pious and sage remark which is quoted with peculiar approbation by the worthy Agapida.
I can conduct you by a way in which you may come upon them by surprise, and if you are as cool in the head as you are hot in the spur, you may bear off your spoils from under the very eyes of old El Zagal." The idea of thus making booty at the very gates of Guadix pleased the hot-spirited youths.
Word Of The Day